Monstrous Rationality
by Screamless
Summary: There is something wrong with Darkmount. There is something wrong with the bots in it. There is something terribly wrong with Shockwave, and he can't bring himself to acknowledge the ghastly truth. A tale of Shockwave discovering what it means to live an afterlife, and how he seeks to reverse death itself.
1. Prologue

**(A little** **prologue to see how well the story might be taken. I will post more if it is taken well.)**

It was very honestly the best change he'd had in a long time.

While Shockwave preferred solitude, he still desired the _opportunity_ to speak with someone. That was why finding Knock Out's search party had been such a blessing. Silence quickly becomes oppressive if it is not occasionally broken by something other than the whir or hum of equipment. Though it meant having to deal with every kind of distraction imaginable, Shockwave counted Darkmount's noisy operations a small inconvenience to the satisfaction of hearing the evidence of other, living beings outside his laboratory doors.

It was still monotonous, but less so, because there were others to talk to who would actually listen, reports to give that would actually be read, and deadlines that would actually have consequences if missed. It was a refreshing change to an existence that was only kept orderly and efficient solely by his own efforts.

And so it was a good change for him, and he acknowledged this in a moment of sentimentality, and then he put the feeling away and did not think on it again. This was his way.

It was good that this was his way, for if he had spent more time thinking about change and good, he would not have noticed that there was something very strange about the fortress.

He would not have noticed the source was coming from him.


	2. Chapter 1

**(** _ **My only notes for this long overdue chapter is to listen to "**_ _ **Dark Gothic Music of Abandoned Castles and Forgotten Temples" by Cryo Chamber on Youtube after the second line break. It fits Shockwave and that scene perfectly. Enjoy.)**_

"Sir? We have the chemicals you requested."

Shockwave turned to find a few Vehicons struggling to push a tray holding various beakers and canisters. He gestured for them to leave it by the table already piling up with used containers. "Careful," he warned as one Vehicon slipped and nearly fell visor first into a fizzing, orange liquid. "Too much handling could prove...catastrophic."

They froze, shot quick looks at each other, and proceeded with a great deal more caution than before, startling themselves every now and then when a claw got too close. They whispered in various Earth languages to each other, but he was more concerned with the calculations on his screen then their strange antics. He was soon absorbed in the task, and did not notice as the Vehicons snuck out.

He hit a good stopping point in his work and approached the tray of chemicals, examining and checking that they were the right ones. Cloning ancient primeval beasts was delicate and precise work, after all. After some time, he returned to his screen, which held various bits of information about the CNA with which he was working. Just as he opened some more files, he heard something outside his laboratory doors.

 _Clack clack clack. Clack clack clack. Clack clack clack._

He opted to ignore it, but it seemed insistent. Why would someone be knocking with only one digit, though?

" _Enter,_ " he called a little more forcefully than was necessary. It had to be a some dull Vehicon making that racket. A higher-ranking officer would have just walked in by now. The clacking continued anyway. With an irritated twitch of his left finial he left his work station and opened the door himself, ready to reprimand whatever foolish soldier had decided to make a nuisance of himself. "I am doing delicate work, I will not tolera-"

He stepped out further, searching both hallways. There was no one there.

That was...confusing. Perhaps he had been awake too long. When was the last time he had refueled? He shook his head and turned to go back into the lab when a shadow moved in his peripheral vision, and he heard a hiss followed by more clacking. When he turned to look at it though, there was no one there. That was common enough, Soundwave often silently slunk through the dark halls by himself. Why, then, did it still fill Shockwave with such unease?

With a final look at his lab, he let its doors swish closed behind him and began to follow the strange clacking. The closer he got to the end of the hall, the more intense this uneasy feeling became. His cannon began to fill with purple light as he neared the corner. He paused just before the corner, shook his head, and looked around to the left.

Nothing. The clacking had stopped, and there were no shadows. The hall was fairly well lit, actually. He stared for a moment more, puzzling over it, before walking away. He was running on too little recharge, obviously, so he returned to his lab to put away his materials (the chemicals would last at least until tomorrow, but he was still a little disappointed he couldn't work with them right now. Such was the cost of his poor recharge and refueling habits) and went to his personal quarters. It was not the first time he had driven himself to a breaking point, and he knew it would not be the last. Still, it was strange. He did not feel tired. There were no signs of sluggishness, no notifications that he needed to refuel, and he thought he had gotten a cube only a little while ago. It was possible he was wrong, he was not as good at keeping track of time as he was of his work, and his chronometer had not been reliable lately. He determined to get that fixed later.

His final thoughts rested on the strange shadow he saw, the odd hissing, and the rhythmic clacking as his consciousness faded into recharge.

* * *

Shockwave awoke to utter darkness.

He sat up slowly, the light of his optic growing brighter as his functions returned one by one. Nothing seemed off at first, but he gradually realized that his optic, even after reaching full capacity, did not seem to illuminate anything. Why was it so dark? He exited his berth and walked forward a couple steps, looking around. His desk, his chair, his datapads…he could not find them. He could barely see the floor beneath him. Reaching his right servo out, he tried to find the manual button for the light that should have turned on the moment he sat up. The more he walked, however, the longer it seemed to take. Why wasn't he reaching the wall? He stopped, offlined and onlined his optic, and suddenly everything was light, and he was almost flush against the wall for which he had been searching.

Had the light…been on the whole time? Had he been walking that slowly? What was going on?

Shockwave shook his head, which he seemed to be doing a lot recently, and returned to his berth to sit down. He contemplated for a moment whether he should go to work in this condition or go have his optic checked. His body seemed to be acting like it was under more stress than usual, but he hadn't been doing anything different. If he worked in this condition, though, there was no telling if it might give out on him in the midst of delicate work. What he had told the Vehicons earlier was true. Those chemicals were not to be trifled with.

That settled it then. If he could not guarantee he could work safely, he would make more use of his time getting his optic, and whatever else, fixed. He got up from his berth and sent a small note to Megatron of the reason for the short delay in his CNA work, then exited his quarters to look for Knock Out.

The medical bay was fairly close to his own lab, so Shockwave arrived there without having to think very hard of where to turn. His pedes turned corners on instinct, and he was confident that he would not need a functional optic to navigate this part of Darkmount, at least. When he entered the med bay, the doctor was there, thankfully not busy. He was muttering about something when he caught sight of Shockwave from the corner of his optic and jumped a little.

"Wha-oh, Shockwave." He quickly masked his surprise with one of those strange looks Shockwave could never decipher. Someone had once described it as "trying for debonair" to him, as if he had any idea what that was supposed to mean. "Didn't…uh, see you there. Any reason for this visit? Perhaps you need finally need some help with your experiments?" Knock Out was always asking that. Annoying. He ignored the comment in favor of getting to the reason he was here.

"Hello, doctor. I am here concerning my health. I am hoping once I describe my experiences from yesterday and this morning that you can determine what malfunctions, and I can return to my work."

Knock Out huffed slightly, whatever emotion that was supposed to mean, and gestured to a chair while he gathered various tools. "I guess we're getting right to it, then."

It was essentially what a regular check-up would usually entail, except Shockwave rarely visited. He described the strange shadows, the hiss, the clack, the unending walk in darkness while Knock Out marked down his overall health, which he declared as not the best but certainly not the worst.

"Of course, you should refuel and recharge more, but no one follows that advice anyway, so you can scratch that." Scratch? What was he going on about scratching somethi- "Your optic is fine, your processor is fine, your audio receptors are fine…you're as healthy as anyone else in this tower. Nothing to worry about, supposedly.

That was it? Surely he would not leave it at that. "I currently have corrosive chemicals in my laboratory. I would prefer something more helpful than…'nothing to worry about.'"

"Hm…don't work with those until your optic stops malfunctioning like that, then. I'd chock it up to insufficient recharge, so take a few more joors of sleep and then come back to me if it continues. I'll let Megatron know I prescribed you some Z's."

Hm. _That is unlikely to happen_ , Shockwave thought shortly after trying to decipher what a "Z" could possibly be. Knock Out began to put away the tools he used. This check-up was over, it would seem.

Shockwave left pondering his diagnosis, or rather lack of one. Something felt odd, but it wasn't about himself. It felt like…Knock Out himself was odd. More odd than usual, at least. Shockwave didn't know the doctor well, but he knew enough that Knock Out was a little more curious than that. Shockwave, for one, was extremely curious about his current condition, and would have preferred a little more effort have been put into understanding what was going on. The red doctor had not said anything that Shockwave could not have come up with himself. He had pushed himself farther than this before and not experienced these malfunctions, so he could not fathom why they should be happening now. He was not young, but he was certainly not old and decrepit either.

There were two choices before him, for now. Recharge as Knock Out had advised, or go back to the crucial work of tampering with ancient CNA. The latter seemed far more interesting an activity, though a more dangerous one. If his eye went out while handling such delicate materials…he would prefer to not deal with the aftermath. It was with disappointed resignation that he returned to his quarters. Well, he had only just awoken, and the meeting with Knock Out had not lasted long, so he might as well create a third option and work with his notes of his experiments if he could not work with the materials themselves. He sat down at his personal desk and began to work.

Only a few joors had been spent on this task when he felt some kind of creeping darkness from the corner of his vision. The moment he stopped typing and paid attention to it, however, the feeling left, and everything was as it had been before. His servo hesitated before the keypad as he tried to decide whether to finally take Knock Out's advice or to push himself further, see how long it took before darkness enveloped his vision. He didn't feel fatigued in the slightest, so this black encroachment aroused his curiosity more than his concern. He continued typing.

Nothing happened the rest of the day, or the night and second day as Shockwave worked continuously. The darkness in his periphery receded shortly after he continued typing, and he paid the incident little mind as he devoted himself to his work. He laid to recharge the third day, deciding that if he didn't act on Knock Out's "prescription" soon he would have to answer for his absence from the lab, no matter that he had been working tirelessly from his own desk.

He awoke rested, but sat on the edge of his berth for a few minutes, waiting for something to happen. No darkness approached, and when he slid down there was no endless trek to his door. His walk to his lab was also uneventful, and after some time spent on his notes, he finally allowed himself access to those chemicals he had asked for a few days ago. He was very cautious, more so than usual, performing each test very slowly that he might not cause some accident should his vision suddenly short out. Still, nothing happened.

Hm. Perhaps Knock Out had been correct. Shockwave loathed to admit it, but he might have simply overreacted. That might have been why the doctor was so nonchalant about the whole thing. He had likely witnessed this phenomenon countless times.

It was no matter. He had experienced no symptoms for a little under three days. It appeared to have been stress and lack of sleep that caused his problem. It was believable enough, given that he already had enough trouble knowing when he should be in pain, or when he had pushed his body too far. His range of emotional and physical sensation was limited, so it was not entirely impossible for him to have such strange experiences. He decided to forget the whole thing and focus on his work. He lifted a vial of the orange liquid and began to pour it carefully into segmented parts of a dish, prepared to stop when he had just the right amount.

That was when everything went dark.

He reared suddenly, not really knowing why but for the utter surprise he felt. There was a crash somewhere, the sound of shattering glass, something sizzling, and pain. He tried to wipe away the pain from his chassis, but it simply spread to his servo. He couldn't see anything, and he felt a brief moment that he was in a broken building with a broken eye, bleeding to death and alone. But that didn't make sense, did it? No, this was a memory, from when he had tried to pursue two Autobots into a spacebridge, only to be shot in the optic and left to his fate on Cybertron, alone.

It was this thought that brought him back to his reality, and it was then that he felt some servos take his arm and help him stand. He had not thought to explore it before, but he realized suddenly that he couldn't hear anything. He felt the vibration of voices, but all was dark and silent. The darkness was…tangible. He could literally feel it, as if he was swimming in murky liquid and each movement was restricted and slow. He was thankful he had no mouth, for once, for he might have swallowed some of the oppressive dark liquid in an attempt to scream.

A thought intruded upon his mind, a foreign thought that he did not think. It whispered to him and echoed in that dark place with his voice.

 _The dead do not scream._

It was over. Two vehicons stood in front of him, one holding onto his arm and looking up at him, and the other warily keeping its distance, seemingly trying to contact some authority. Shockwave looked around at the mess now eating away at his lab, orange fumes rising into the air, and then looked at himself. Most of the chemical substance had fallen onto his front and his right arm, slowly eating away at the metal.

"Shockwave, sir, you are injured," said the first Vehicon, hastily letting go of his superior once he realized he was still clinging to him. Shockwave nodded absently, focusing more on the undiluted sting of acid and the bizarre experience he just had. He instructed the two guards how to clean up the mess as he could not bend down very well, then left them to it while he proceeded to the medical bay. It had been less than four days and he was already going back.

"Doctor, it would seem I require medical attention again. It is considerably more serious this time," he announced the moment he walked in. There was no need to waste time, not with acid wasting more of his frame away every second.

"Seem to be visiting me a lot these days Shockw-Primus!" Knock Out dropped the datapad he was holding, optics going wide at the sight of Shockwave's corroding frame. "What happened to _you?_ "

Shockwave gave as close to a withering stare as he could manage, stating flatly, "Optic. It malfunctioned while I was handling the chemicals I mentioned."

Knock Out grimaced in what might have been guilt and set to work gathering the material needed to scrape off the acid and deactivate its acidic properties. Shockwave usually chose not to put a name to whatever muted feelings he was having since they usually left so quickly, but he thought it safe to say he was considerably more irritated than he was earlier today. Perhaps if he had trusted his own judgment and pushed the issue, he wouldn't be sitting here with _acid_ dripping off of him. He might have sighed, if he could. He was getting into many mishaps lately, it would seem.

It took some work, but eventually Shockwave was free of the acid, though the stench of it still clung to his frame. That was no matter to him, he would just wash it off later. Right now, he was content to stand in place and just stare at Knock Out, who was gathering some metal from a back closet to attach to Shockwave's front and right arm. The other chose not to say anything, though he looked far more uncomfortable with the silence than Shockwave did. The red mech finally just laughed. Shockwave remembered it had once been described to him as a "nervous laugh." Well, at least he wasn't actually gleeful about Shockwave's predicament, though if he had been the scientist would not be surprised. He was pulled from his angry thoughts as Knock Out cleared his throat as he set to work attaching the metal to him.

"So…I take it the recharge-refuel routine didn't work…"

"No. It did not, Knock Out." Yes. It would seem Shockwave was _very_ irritated. "The symptoms have worsened. I would like access to your supplies here so that I might find the source of these visions myself."

Knock Out stopped and blinked. "You want what now?"

Shockwave was losing his patience. After all the inexplicable visions, the lab accident, and Knock Out's inability to help with any of it, he was rapidly losing the mental energy he usually reserved for staying calm and remaining patient. He adjusted his stance to be less tense and said, as calmly as he could, "The tools in this bay would allow me to discover what ails me. I have more expertise with the Cybertronian processor than you, especially my own. _Therefore,_ " he emphasized, speaking slowly enough that Knock Out should not need to pester him with such inane questions, "I am respectfullyrequesting access to those tools."

Something strange happened. For the smallest of microseconds, Knock Out's face contorted into an ugly grimace, not a guilty one but an angry one, as if the thought of what Shockwave had proposed brought him uncontrollable rage. The face had been extreme enough that even he could not mistake what it meant. It was gone in but a moment, but it threw Shockwave off enough that he could not think of what to do in response except stare, finials pinned back as he tried to understand what he could have done to provoke such a response. He quickly recovered, yet felt his irritation morph into the beginnings of genuine anger. Perhaps he did not have such firm control over the expression of his irritation as he thought. He made a mental note to speak a little more evenly. "I…can assure that I will not damage any of the tools. Your anger is unjustified."

Knock Out looked at him as if confused. "I'm not angry, I was just…trying to remember who I need to operate on today! Hehe! I just need them back in time to perform important work!"

Shockwave did not answer, searching Knock Out's face. He was sure he had seen something…no. He was often wrong when it came to these things. He had also been separated from civilization for a millennium. There was no telling how things had changed during that time, which facial expressions had become acceptable and which had not. He would reluctantly give Knock Out the benefit of his doubt. Finally, he said, "I…will return them as soon as I am able. I will be swift."

The doctor seemed to fall into an easier stance, as if he had forgotten what had just happened and was more concerned with his next task. "I would suggest resting before any more experiments. You basically just underwent waking surgery. It was just some welding, but it still needs time to set to stay in place. Safest bet would be to return tomorrow."

Something angry rumbled within Shockwave, enough to be audible. "Lord Megatron will not be pleased." He had gotten hardly any work done in a week, and had been involved in what was likely to be a costly laboratory accident. Resources were precious, more so now than ever before.

"I'm…sure he'll understand? He seems to value efficiency as much as you do. Would he want you to be working like this, or would he want you working at your best?"

Shockwave rumbled some more, but more in thought this time than in anger. He had wasted much time already, and was ready to return to his work. However, it was that very desire that had landed him here, with a mess to clean up and damaged metal to let heal. It would seem he would be delayed even more. Unless…

"Very well," he said decidedly. "I will take one day of rest. After this, however, nothing will stand in between me and the completion of my vital work. Tomorrow I will return here to collect the tools I requested earlier."

Knock Out nodded, and Shockwave left to his quarters, thoroughly irked over the events of the day, not to mention the past week. He had completely forgotten about Knock Out's strange faces and actions by the time he laid down in his own berth, focusing entirely on the newer, safer measures he would take to ensure he got the most amount of work done with the smallest chance of ruining everything with a blind episode.

His recharge was stiff and unmoving, as he could not twist the metal before it was completely set, but his recharge was deep, and he had strange dreams. Most were blurred, something glowing and purple moved haltingly around him, and he felt like he must be on the floor. All he could see was his right arm stretched out before him, and the pedes of some kind of dark figure standing before him. He tried to look up, but could not move.

The purple mech awoke confused, vents working to cycle air more harshly than before. He gently shook his head and looked at his newly mended wounds, which seemed to be setting well. At least he had not awoken blind this morning. That would have drastically halted the progress he was hoping to make today.

He visited the medical bay where Knock Out helped him find the tools he needed, which Shockwave carried to his lab himself. The doors swished open and the stench of acid hit his sensors. His olfactory sensors were not very sensitive in the first place, so the fact that he had to take a moment to adjust to it served to show how strong the odor was. He set the box of tools down on a clear and structurally _sound_ surface while he looked around the room, especially at the sight of his mishap. The metal there was warped, twisted, and resembled the melting pattern Shockwave had seen on mech's faces that had been ruined by extreme heat (all as a result of his own experiments, of course). There was nothing to be done about the mess for now, except perhaps to rid it of its overwhelming, unpleasant fragrance, which he did by spraying it down with some deactivating materials he kept in a compartment on the left side of the room. Now the room smelled of something equally powerful, but with far less of a sting, and Shockwave did not have to worry about inhaling as many airborne acid molecules through his vents. It was fine in small quantities, but with how much time he spent here, it was better to be proactive about it. He did not like to make mistakes twice.

Now to find the source of his issues.

He had thought long and hard last night, and had concluded that he had come to conclusions too _quickly_. He had not experienced problems with his optic for a full millennium, but perhaps he had not fixed it as well as he initially thought. The power in his makeshift laboratories had often flickered or went out completely, but who was to say that had not simply been his own optic malfunctioning? That did not account for the strange visions, but there were other possibilities he could consider. How many times had he used a cortical psychic patch while it was still in development, still incomplete? He could not count them. Even watching carefully for any complications while he experimented with it, there was no telling what it had done to his psyche, damaged enough as it was by…earlier meddling.

The only way to fix this was to meddle with his mind some more, of course.

It was time to dive into the contents of the box he had brought with him. First, he began a normal, surface level scan, which brought up nothing more than his current injuries. He dug out a more sophisticated scanner, the function of which was to perform deeper processor scans, and used that on himself as well. Again, it did not reveal any new information to him, just the same old image of a severely damaged and traumatized processor that he had become deeply familiar with over the vorns of his extended solitude. There was nothing to suggest he should be experiencing visions this… _troubling_ , would be one way to put it. After a long stare at the image of the results, he finally put the scanner back in the box and set it out of the way, pulling out a thin, purple cord from the carefully organized drawers of his lab. At both ends it fanned out and resembled a satellite dish, with one long needle sticking out of the middle. The cortical psychic patch. A device that allowed a mech to roam the thoughts of another, enter their mind and tamper with it however one pleased. Yet it had another feature only known to Shockwave himself. He had created it for this exact purpose, initially, to peruse his own thoughts without actively affecting them. It was supposed to allow him to discover truths about himself, hidden memories and incomplete ideas that might prove invaluable later. It was by chance that he had discovered its other uses. Surely, this was Shockwave's greatest creation.

For now, that is. There was no telling what wonders his current experiments in CNA would create in the future.

Now was not the time to think about that, however. Shockwave was determined to discover the source of his visions. If this venture proved fruitless in the end, he would at least be able to eliminate it as one of the possibilities. With that thought in mind, he attached one end of the patch to a console and settled himself in a chair, feeling the needle enter the back of his head with a _snikt_ before his vision blurred and darkened entirely.

* * *

Weightless, yet heavy. Impermanent, yet real.

The mindscape.

Slowly, calmly, Shockwave turned his head to regard the empty space that enveloped him. He stood in the darkness of the abyss, among nothing. It was completely, utterly empty. Lifting his right servo, he examined his shadowy self as his movements left trails of purple, pink, and silver, as if he was a painting in the midst of being smeared. Similar to some kind of smoke that did not dissipate. No time to stare, though. There was much to be done, memories to be torn apart and examined. Even in this darkness, even as the silence bore down on him like a heavy weight, he would work.

There was no need to vent here. With one thought, his voice would boom, or it would whisper. For now, he chose to rumble quietly, " _Open."_

In that moment the heavens of his mind burst forth with light as all memories, all thoughts, all secrets unfurled from the recesses of his abyss. No one knew the patch as well as he did. No one knew its intricacies, what it was capable of in the right servos. His servos. With enough focus, and just the right words, the entirety of his mind opened up before him, concealing nothing. It was _complete_ truth, and it was beautiful. Terribly, terribly beautiful.

Here, he might as well be a god.

As he perused the various memories of his past, of which there were many, he did not often stop to closely consider them. There were few that interested him, as he had done this very thing many, many times before. He had not spent his time idly while studying the patch, and he did not shy away from many of his experiences. Only the few that he had no use remembering. Only the few that still made him feel something.

Shockwave's examination of his memories yielded nothing but for one unfamiliar image that he could not understand. It was one simple moving image, five nanokliks long, of his right arm outstretched on the floor, and blurry dark figures shuffling around him, tall and glowing purple.

It was identical to his vision.

Every detail, he studied intensely. Every movement, he watched. The image must have played through a hundred times before he looked away, satisfied with his mental notes of the memory. Or was it some kind of nightmare he had confused for a memory? There were plenty of those tucked away with his secrets. This was different. This one was aimless, with no narrative. It was unlike his infrequent nightmares, which were only re-imaginings of the horrors he had experienced before. This one glitched as if it was an actual video, sections of the image cutting out and speeding up, or slowing down. He growled to himself. He could not decipher it.

It was not in his interest to look at his secrets. He had studied them all before, and saw nothing new anyway. It was…logical to avoid them for now.

His thoughts were his pride and joy, most times. They were what he approached next. They were the source of his greatest works. Thought and emotion were synonymous here, for any emotion he had was always the result of a thought, so why should he differentiate them, treat them differently? It was logical, or so he rationalized to himself.

Shockwave's thoughts focused mainly on his work, his plans, and the visions. It was not often that his thoughts weren't hyperfocused on more than just a few areas of interest, as he tended to think only about that which interested him relentlessly until he was done with it, and then move on to the next thing. Others had called it "obsessions" before, but it was all he had ever known. It was no matter. There was nothing new here.

It seemed he was done here. There was nothing more to be found, save to relive some old moments perhaps, but there was no use for reminiscing. There was only time for either work or recuperation, of which he intended to do both. With a final once-over of his grayish mindscape, the scientist uttered one word.

 _"End."_

Color rocketed past Shockwave as he felt his consciousness rise from the inner depths of his being, the whole spectrum that he had seen before, many times, flying by. It was over in an instant, and he was shaking loose the feeling of lethargy from his limbs as he pulled the needle of the cortical psychic patch from the back of his neck. He looked around, making sure everything was as he remembered it. It seemed nothing had changed, though his chronometer could still only give him an approximation of how long he had been unconscious and exploring his mind.

The sting had not yet subsided when darkness once more crept into his vision. He was standing up in an instant, startled by how suddenly it had returned. Had he been right all along? Was it the patch that caused this phenomenon to occur?

His racing thoughts were cut short as blindness consumed his vision far more quickly than it ever had before. The familiar sight of his right arm outstretched greeted him again, but something was different this time. Some gray figure was hunched over his frame, he could tell that much from the corner of his optic, but he could not see the face. All he knew was that it also glowed purple, and that it growled and rasped and smacked in ways that gave Shockwave the haunting feeling that it must be hungry. Or that it must already be _eating_. He could feel nothing physically, yet he was filled with a sense of dread that the very thing it might be eating could be _him_.

The vision was gone before he could notice anything more, leaving him more shaken than he had been in a while. It took quite some time of sitting, shaking in his chair before he could override the feeling of horror and foreboding with his usual logic.

It was too much to think about now. He would calm himself with his work, and he would do so extremely carefully. He did not even allow himself to touch the materials, only letting automated arms and systems do as he directed. This, he could count on and understand. This, he need not fear. It was all he could do as he wondered just how he was supposed to explain this to anyone, how he was supposed to make someone understand why his work had lapsed so much. That "someone" was really Megatron, whose opinion was the only one Shockwave ever cared to concern himself. No amount of "doctor's notes" was going to account for the damage that had already been done. He did not fear his leader the way Starscream seemed to, of course, but he was still to be held responsible for the halt in progress lately, and that was something Shockwave found hard to accept, given how hardworking he was. He must rectify it by being more productive today than he had been in the entire week previous. Such was his goal, and it was an excellent distractor from the unsettling events of the day. That was all he needed for now, until he could uncover just what this all meant, and why it was happening now.

So he worked, until he could work no longer and was forced to rest. Yet throughout the long joors, he thought, and he pondered, and he puzzled about his experiences.

It was with grim finality that he concluded he could not see the logic in any of it at all.


	3. Chapter 2

There were few ideas Shockwave did not consider and explore the following days after the cortical psychic patch incident, interspersed as they were with distressing visions that brought back too many bad memories.

He met with Lord Megatron and explained that his tampering with the patch in its early stages of development had possibly had an adverse effect on him, yet repeatedly assured that he would not let such limitations hold him back from completing his work like it had the previous week. His concerns about Megatron's disapproval were unfounded in the end, as the only real criticism he received was a calm "work harder" followed by praise for the progress he had already made. If it was this easy to gain his approval, Shockwave could only imagine how little faith in his army's capabilities Megatron held at this point. Shockwave had missed much, apparently. That reminded him…

"Lord Megatron," he called just as Megatron moved to leave the lab. "I have one question to ask of you, concerning Dark Energon."

Megatron regarded him with a guarded stare, one crooked eyebrow ridge lifted in wary apprehension. He hooked his servos behind his back and turned to fully face Shockwave again, nodding to him and rasping a little more coldly than before, "What _about_ Dark Energon, Shockwave?"

He had been warned this was a topic Megatron did not care for. He proceeded anyway. "Have there been any reports of the mere presence of the substance causing mild disturbances among the ranks? Hallucinations, various malfunctions?"

Megatron's optics narrowed as he kept still, as though searching for something in the way Shockwave held himself. It seemed his search assuaged his fears. "The mere presence of Dark Energon has not affected anyone on my ship, nor in my tower. Far closer contact is required for such…undesirable effects to occur." He stepped a little past Shockwave, looking beyond him as if thinking hard. Then, the corner of his serrated mouth lifted into a small, crooked smile as he looked back at Shockwave and said, "You need not worry, Shockwave. I can assure you that whatever is causing your malfunction is not linked to the lingering elements of that dark blood. We are free of that poison."

Shockwave let that statement sit in his mind, weighing it against his other hypotheses. It fell through, and he no longer considered it a possibility.

Megatron seemed done with this conversation, the slightly sinister grin still remaining on his face. "I will leave you to your work," he said. With that, he was gone.

Shockwave returned to his materials for the day, which were sturdier than his last batch of chemicals, so he was not concerned with a sudden blackout disturbing his work. He was distracted, however. If Dark Energon was not the answer, then what was? The patch seemed to induce more visions whenever he used it. It could be due to other factors, like the extended "waking rest" the patch caused that allowed his mind to wander and play tricks on itself, or to the physical feeling of the needle entering his neck, which brought back unpleasant memories for him every time. Shockwave was no stranger to dissociation or flash-backs, but that answer seemed incomplete. It did not account for everything.

He would think on it more when he finally recharged, which likely would be later that night. He was trying his best to avoid a visit to Knock Out and his strange mannerisms again, so he was recharging more healthily than he normally would to reduce the chance of another vision.

Thankfully he had not had another one today, but he was prepared. They always visited at least once, if not more, and they were always exactly the same. The one arm before him. The dark shapes shuffling about. The hunched figure and the crunch of metal and the horrible smacking of lips. It never revealed anything more, no matter how much he paid attention or how hard he tried to do something other than just stare helplessly in the vision. It was endlessly frustrating.

There was nothing to be done except work harder at it. Just as he worked at Project Predacon, he would work on discovering the cause of these flitting images, and if he could, stomp them out of existence. Shockwave had no need for such confusing non-narratives infecting his brain, and he would eradicate them so that he might work with ease. This was his plan.

* * *

His internal alarm sounded, and it was with the greatest reluctance that he wrested himself from his work station to go to his berth. The more recharge he got, the fewer visions he received, and the better his work fared. The time sacrificed to sleep was worth the respite from the confusion and anger he felt at how utterly illogical the whole experience was. He stepped out of his lab and began the trek to his room.

Hm. The guards were gone again. In such a large tower, it made sense that everyone was scattered, but he usually saw at least one Vehicon when passing through the halls. He checked his chronometer, which he kept forgetting to have fixed. Had he misjudged the time? Perhaps missed a notification of a mass meeting? Searching through his processor, he could find nothing. Odd.

Now that he considered it, it was far more likely that even if he was to lay down he would just lay awake for many joors and fail to sleep altogether. Too much recharge meant too much energy to burn. If it was going to be a doomed effort from the beginning, the next logical step was to find something to do with his time. He decided he would briefly search for some other Vehicon and see where everyone had gone. He turned right instead of left at the passageway that would have taken him to his quarters, heading for the Vehicon common rooms.

The halls seemed…longer than usual. Darker. The longer he walked, the more desolate it seemed. For a moment he looked behind him. The instinct was absurd, he had not seen anyone, but he felt as if someone must be there. Strange. It had been lighter behind him when he was walking through the hall, but looking back, he could hardly see to the end of it. He quickened his pace.

There, something on the floor ahead of him, something silver. Something about it was not right. Why…why did it look like Starscream? He ran to the body lying on the floor, alarmed and perplexed. It was indeed Starscream, face down and limbs sprawled with a growing pool of Energon beneath him. Shockwave looked around to see who could have done this, but the halls remained empty. He immediately commed Knock Out and Megatron at the same time, sending the messages, "Starscream is gravely injured in Hall C. Come at once!" and "Lord Megatron, there is an intruder in the tower that has attacked Starscream and still roams the halls." This done, he flipped Starscream over. He may not like the mech, but Megatron would not be pleased should he die from Energon loss, so Shockwave was willing to at least keep him alive until Knock Out arrived.

His servo snapped back as if burned when he saw Starscream's wound, oozing thick black swirls of liquid rather than Energon. It was not oil, that much he knew. The wound was located in his side where some nonvital organs resided, like the T-Cog, but it looked strange, as if the metal there had been torn and healed multiple times. Massive, twisted scars lined the edge of the gash, ridged as it spread up his torso. Starscream's optics were wide open and pitch black, as if the glass of the optics was not inside. Shockwave ignored that as best he could and focused on closing the wound while he waited for medical assistance to arrive. Shockwave commed Knock Out again, growing impatient. Should he not have arrived already?

"Knock Out, respond. I have found significant strains of a strange substance in Starscream's Energon. It is imperative that you arrive quickly."

No response. Shockwave rumbled deep in his chest in rising anger and confusion. Lord Megatron had not answered either. Where _was_ everyone?

"Knock Out, respond!" Nothing again. He tried for Megatron again as well, receiving nothing, not even some static that would have indicated someone was obstructing comm signals. It was as if everyone was simply refusing to respond. Shockwave stood and went looking down the halls but did not stray far from Starscream's body. The search was fruitless, to his immense frustration. Not even Soundwave was answering his comms, and Soundwave never ignored his comms. It was like everyone had disappeared off the face of this world.

Shockwave stopped upon coming to a sudden realization. Starscream was a cowardly mech from time to time, but he was not a weak one. He was slender, but he was extremely dangerous in his own right, especially with his claws and spiked knees to help him. For someone to have been able to wound him so grievously and so quietly that Shockwave had not heard even the hint of an alarm going off…the enemy that had attacked must be extremely skilled and exceedingly deadly. They could even be the reason no one was answering Shockwave's comms. But why, then, did he not see piles of Vehicon bodies everywhere? What was going on? Shockwave rushed back to Starscream, determined to take him to the medical bay himself since no one was available.

Just as he was about to lift Starscream to carry him to the medical bay, the mech winked out of existence before Shockwave's very optic, leaving empty air in his arms.

Unable to move for the brief seconds as his own disbelief stunned him, all he could do was breathe, "Illogical…"

He stood up, backing away from where Starscream had been but moments ago, the floor once stained in Energon now clean as polished armor. There was nothing there, and there was no sign there ever was.

He had dealt with hallucinations before, many had when dealing with the trauma of war, but he had never had one that he could touch.

Shockwave searched everywhere on a quest to find another living soul. No room went unchecked, not even closets. It was a time-consuming effort, given how massive the tower was, and he even checked the Nemesis ship, with no luck. His efforts slowed over time. When he tried to use the consoles to communicate, he got nothing. There were no signals anywhere, not even static. The lights and buttons looked like they were online but acted as if they were not even turned on. The shadows shifted strangely. Sounds echoed in a way they should not. Shockwave ignored these in favor of completing this task. It was all he could do.

His pedes took him to the second highest floor, but its halls were just as empty as all those below. He began to despair that he should find anyone when the sound of grating metal reached his audio receptors. In a moment he had rushed to the sound, careful to look around the corners before proceeding as he did not wish to make his presence known should everyone's absence be the cause of a hostile intruder. As improbable as that thought seemed, Shockwave was not willing to risk it. Far stranger things had occurred in the past cycles than an invasion.

There was no need, in the end. Shockwave found that the source of the noise came from a faulty, crooked door that could not close, though it tried repeatedly, hence the grating sound. It was the only thing that looked like it was working inside the entire tower. He must investigate.

Shockwave was strong, so one arm was enough to stop the door in its incessant attempts to shut. He slammed it into its compartment once with a grunt, stepping inside the room once he was satisfied that it would no longer grate, though it sparked a little as it struggled to close.

Inside the dark room were a few storage crates. This was a closet, apparently. It was mostly unremarkable, save for a strange glow that shown through the back. Shockwave realized it was a hole in the wall that let the light through, jagged and twisted but big enough for a mech his size to squeeze through. It was odd, but not odd enough to stop him from doing just that. His shoulders screeched across some of the metal as he found himself inside a much larger room, one full of consoles and tables and monitors. Shockwave recognized it as the main meeting room, which Lord Megatron had decided was the ideal room to address his troops en masse, which explained its large size.

What immediately captured Shockwave's attention, however, was the sight of a single groundbridge swirling right in the middle.

Shockwave did not move as he studied the vortex, reluctant to approach after the strange experiences of the past few days. It was dark, and gray, something he had never seen before in a groundbridge. It was supposed to be a green and blue hybrid, as it was derived from Energon, but this bridge almost looked as if it was sucking the color from the room. Shockwave looked at himself and saw he was still purple, but the tables near the bridge were simply colorless.

An odd sensation came over Shockwave. For the first time in his life, he felt as though he did not want to investigate. In fact, the thought of doing so filled him with a profound sense of dread, if not fear. The very sight of this groundbridge almost sickened him, but he could not fathom why. He…he wanted to go back. He wanted to go back to his lab and stay there. Why? He asked himself this and could not give himself an answer. The thought of entering the groundbridge horrified him somehow. He felt as if he must never enter, as if some terror awaited him on the other side.

He could not.

He must go back.

He must go back.

His winglets screeched painfully across the jagged metal of the opening through which he had entered as he scrambled back through, unwilling to stay a moment longer. He transformed and made a straight line for his laboratory, refusing to deviate from his path for anything. His engine roared through the halls and his treads made marks, but he did not care. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this had to have been the most illogical thing he had ever done, but he was not willing to give it much thought until he was back in his lab and safe, with a reinforced door between him and that groundbridge. Between him and that sense of foreboding.

Shockwave nearly crashed into his own precious chemicals in his hurry to get to his lab, transforming into bi-pedal mode seconds before he would have made impact. His right fist slammed into the door controls as he passed through the door, shutting and locking it immediately, while he stood venting hard, shoulders rising and falling as evidence of his exertion.

He had not driven so fast in a long time. And for what? A single off-colored groundbridge and some odd-looking shadows? What had come over him?

"Illogical…completely illogical…" he muttered bitterly in between haggard vents, the fear in his spark already subsiding now that he was far away from the source of it.

The questions burned endlessly in his helm after that. His vision reappeared every few joors. Was it trying to tell him something? Most of his theories circled back to the psychic patch. Had he been caught unawares during an attack, the patch ripped from his helm? Was he actually just rusting away on the floor of his lab, injured and trapped in his own mindscape? Was this his body's way of trying to warn him he was near death, by creating some hellish, empty dream? These questions plagued his every waking moment as he made feverish attempts to extricate himself from his situation, chanting, _"End. End. End,"_ to himself day and night. Nothing worked, and he feared that the patch had truly been interrupted prematurely.

This could not be his fate. He would not let it.

* * *

His curiosity and desperation burned more fiercely every day that passed. As the Earth's sun erupted from the horizon of the desert he would embark on a journey across the desolate sand wastes into the craggy, earthen canyons and fixtures in the distance, trying again and again to reach some other destination, some other evidence of the world outside Darkmount. He had heard of them. He knew of the primitive cities this world possessed, for he had heard the Vehicons discussing them before. It interested him little then, but now he would have given much just to see the glint of lights on the horizon. Nothing ever appeared, though, for every time he journeyed throughout the day, he would arrive at Darkmount just as the last remnants of sunlight left the arid ground. It was one giant, infinite loop of land and time, and he could not escape. It was unlike any mindscape he had ever seen, and he had seen many. This was not what was supposed to happen. The patch was supposed to be a rolling reel of memories and thoughts, not a mind-numbing loop of the same place.

Yet, as night darkened every corner and hushed every sound, he would investigate the second highest floor just below the open-air deck, approaching as closely as he dared to the one room he could not seem to enter. Every time, the door reverted to its malfunctioning state as if Shockwave had never slammed it in place at all, and every time, he would get as close to that door as he could before he found himself unable to take another step, recalling the eerie glow of that dark portal, with its strange white stripes mingled in what looked more like an optical illusion than a groundbridge. The Energon in him ran cold the moment he got too close, though he tried to remind himself he did not really have Energon, not in his own mindscape. It never seemed to work.

The time that passed while he repeated this cycle could not be measured. Even Shockwave, who had spent a millennium alone on a barren, lifeless world, felt that it approached the haunting feeling of eternity, a concept even Cybertronians could not comprehend fully. He had given up on fixing his chronometer, as whatever time felt like in here could be completely different from what was happening in the waking world. Nothing was real here. He came to realize nothing had ever been real here, but everything was only a figment of his imagination that had been conjured to keep the fantasy of normalcy before him. Now that he had cracked the mystery, his mind must have seen no need to keep up the ruse, and left him to rot in an eternal dream.

This could not be his fate. But what if he was helpless to change it? Was he doomed to a monotonous eternity in his own mind, until his spark eventually snuffed out?

It was as he contemplated this that there came one day that his lab door would not close, even when Shockwave tried to pull the metal out himself. Today was not a day he wished to spend outside his lab, not even to see the sunrise that reminded him that even in this loop there was something of an order here, but curiosity overcame his reluctance when he saw strange black marks on the floor leading out into the halls. Upon closer inspection the marks would start to fade, but Shockwave was able to perceive that they were much like the shape of narrow pedes. The black ooze ran like paint, but he was not able to touch the substance before it vanished. Before, he might have been cautious and suspicious of some sort of trap at the end of these pedesteps, but nothing like that had happened for what felt like eons. Something different, even if it could be dangerous, was a welcome respite from the numbing silence and absence of activity.

Shockwave followed the black marks through the halls, cannon at the ready. It led him past dark corridors and shadows, winding in ways he did not recall ever existing in that tower. Finally, they stopped in the middle of one hall. Shockwave recognized it as the hall in which he had found Starscream, all that time ago. He continued past the spot, but no more pedesteps appeared.

Something hissed, and Shockwave whipped around, scanning the walls and floors, even the ceiling. Nothing.

Was it strange that he almost hoped for something to appear? Was it strange that he was suddenly thinking of his own strangeness, when he had never bothered with it before?

A moment of clarity came to the scientist as he analyzed his own behavior, something he had tried to avoid for a very long time. It was a sort of madness, to try the same thing every day, to jump at every sound, to concern himself with how someone else might interpret his actions when no one was ever there. His thoughts grew more incoherent every day, more jumbled and chaotic every time he visited that dreaded room with the hole in the wall and the portal. What was he doing? He knew this was just a dream. He knew none of this was real. Why was he treating it as if it was? His muttering of, "Illogical, illogical," had not caused him to try avoiding the irrationality of his actions, only accept them. This in itself was unacceptable to him.

He would take control. He would disregard the feeling of unease, the horror, and he would…he would approach the portal. It was obviously the source of his troubles, and if he did not take care of it he would be here forever. His useless journeys into the desert were just desperate attempts to avoid entering the one place that might give him answers.

It was in a few clicks that he found himself before the dreaded door, slamming open and closed as it always was. The closer he came the slower he walked, until he was standing before the entrance, and then the hole in the wall, and finally before the portal itself. As he approached, he felt the first hints of fatigue he had felt the entire time he had been trapped here. The color began to fade from his frame, leaving him a death-like gunmetal gray. For some reason, taking one more step felt like the hardest thing he could ever do. But he would not let such a thing stop him. He was far, far more capable than that.

The portal swirled inch by inch, white lining the gray and circling closer and closer to the center. Everything about it repulsed him, though it looked harmless on its own. Out of spite for the effect it had on him, he reached out his servo to touch the portal. Upon his touch, the portal rippled like liquid and the swirling was interrupted for a brief moment before returning to its slow pace.

Now. With vents clamped shut, he plunged into the coiling substance.

His body felt submerged in liquid as he stepped through all at once, pulling at his limbs and making his movements sluggish. It was incredibly difficult just to take step after step when it felt like the portal was doing everything it could to hold him back. Everything he could see was taken up by gray, and his energy was draining from him at an alarming rate. He was being smothered. He, a being who had no need for breath, was suffocating. But could he suffocate in a deathless place?

Time was only pondering and slow, here. There was no passage of it, only the weight of mountains as he tried to move through the swirling sludge. The pressure was so much, he felt his eye must crack.

Shockwave's vents made a gasping sound when he suddenly broke through a barrier he had never seen. It felt as though liquid dripped down his optic and pooled in the lower crevice of its socket. He forced his vents to sputter, but there was nothing there. Just the crawling sensation of liquid, with no evidence. Unnerving, to say the least. When his vision was no longer obstructed, he froze from the dawning realization that he knew exactly where he was.

On the floor, crusted, old Energon framed the torn remains of Shockwave himself.

Here he stood, but there was his body. Not a clone. He had destroyed all his clones in a smelter an eon ago. It was his. It was his ravaged body that lay on the floor, internal organs strewn and…eaten. His frame was almost unrecognizable, but he knew it was him. He knew the instant he saw the one arm outstretched, all other limbs but that one ripped from the body and strewn across the room. He knew because he saw the lean, skulking frame hunched over his body. He saw the staggering mecha. He knew this room to be the source of his visions.

Something slithered from the abdomen of the thin creature hanging over his frame and stabbed where Shockwave's spark would have been. A purple glow traveled from its abdomen to his chest, and Shockwave watched as his veins began to glow as well. For a brief moment, his body moved, shaking as its arm tried to reach out. It was too dead to know to escape, but too alive to not reach out for help, even when help was not there. Its broken optic flickered, vox sounding shredded but still producing static from what must be agony. It mattered not to the creature that fed upon his body, which became illuminated as it began to feed on the tiniest quantities of Energon starting to leak from Shockwave's body. Even in the new light, the creature's face was incomprehensible, blurred out like an angrily smeared painting. All he could tell was that it was angular, dark, gray, and dripping Energon from its mouth.

Shockwave, the one who stood watching this in numb disbelief, could not break his gaze away as the glowing appendage retracted back into the monster's stomach, the creature having jumpstarted his spark so it could feed on a little more fresh Energon. Purple Energon. Dark Energon.

It was with growing horror that Shockwave realized what he saw before him was no illusion. This was reality. He was dead, and the only reason he had not moved on to the join the Allspark was because some Primus-forsaken creature had tainted his blood with _Dark Energon_ before killing him, and then never even let him fully die. He was being brought back to life over and over again, on the brink of death yet trapped in a hell of his own making because the blood of the Chaos-bringer had dripped into his veins, barring him for eternity from the one place he might rest.

He would be here forever.

He would never be able to leave.

He was trapped.

This monstrosity had trapped him in his own mind.

He had to get out of here.

One heavy step at a time, his pedes moved back, though he felt as if they were stuck to the ground. The farther he stepped away, the more the portal felt as if it was an inviting friend. Anywhere, even the hellscape he had been so desperate to escape, was better than seeing his ravaged body ripped to pieces over and over again.

He ran through the portal without looking back. Eons did not pass now, but milliseconds, and he felt as if he must be flying. Almost no time had passed before he was crashing through the hole in the wall, winglets scraping painfully as he forced his way though it and slammed through the door on the other side. He did not even think to transform, only to run, and run, and run. His vents screeched and rasped as he pelted at full speed to his lab, the last sanctuary he had. It did not matter to him that he crashed through and ruined several of the tables as he finally shot into his lab, forcing the door closed when his shaking servo could not punch the code in correctly. He collapsed onto a chair as his vents worked exceedingly hard to cool his overheating body.

He had seen the truth. His visions were not visions, but the reality. What he was experiencing now was only a prolonged dream, briefly interrupted just to supply some grotesque feeding frenzy. He could not imagine anything more horrifying than this realization.

No matter how he tried to rationalize it away, the monstrous truth had burned itself permanently into his optic.


End file.
